Bolesław Prus (pronounced:
[bɔ'lεswaf 'prus];
HrubieszówHrubieszów is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of 18,661 . It is the capital of Hrubieszów County.Since 1999 Hrubieszów has been part of Lublin Province . Earlier, 1975–98, it had been part of Zamość Province...
, 20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912,
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
), whose actual name was
Aleksander Głowacki, was perhaps the leading figure in
Polish literature of the late 19th centuryPositivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
. He adopted the
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
"Prus" from his family coat-of-arms.
An indelible mark was left on him by his traumatic experiences as a 15-year-old soldier in the Polish
1863 UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
against Imperial Russia, in which he suffered severe injuries and imprisonment. These early experiences may have precipitated the
panic disorderPanic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurring severe panic attacks. It may also include significant behavioral change lasting at least a month and of ongoing worry about the implications or concern about having other attacks. The latter are called anticipatory attacks...
and
agoraphobiaAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
that would dog him through life.
In 1872 at age 25, in
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
, Prus settled into a 40-year journalistic career that gave pride of place to science, technology and economic development, as prerequisites for his country's sociopolitical redemption. As a sideline, wishing to appeal to readers' aesthetic sensibilities, he began writing
short storiesShort Stories may refer to one of the following.*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , a collection by Liam O'Flaherty*Short Stories *Short Stories , a 1954 collection by O. E...
. Attaining success with these forays into
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
, he went on to employ a broader canvas; between 1886 and 1895, he completed four major
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s on "great questions of our age."
Of Prus' novels, perennial favorites with readers are
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
and
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
.
The Doll describes the romantic infatuation of a man of action who is frustrated by his country's backwardness.
Pharaoh, Prus' only
historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
, is a study of
political powerPolitical power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
and statecraft, set in
ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
at the fall of its 20th Dynasty, which marked the fall of the
New KingdomThe New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was...
.
Early years
Aleksander Głowacki was born on 20 August 1847 in
HrubieszówHrubieszów is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of 18,661 . It is the capital of Hrubieszów County.Since 1999 Hrubieszów has been part of Lublin Province . Earlier, 1975–98, it had been part of Zamość Province...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, very near the present-day border with
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
. He was the younger son of Antoni Głowacki, an estate steward at the village of
ŻabczeŻabcze is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dołhobyczów, within Hrubieszów County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland, close to the border with Ukraine. It lies some south of Dołhobyczów, south of Hrubieszów, and southeast of the regional capital, Lublin.The village has a...
, in
Hrubieszów CountyHrubieszów County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Lublin Voivodeship, eastern Poland, on the border with Ukraine. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998...
, and Apolonia Głowacka,
néeNEE, Nee, Née may refer to:* Née or Nee, French for "born", indicates a person's birth surname* Nee , a band in Kannada* NEE, a political party in Flanders, Belgium* "Ne~e?", a 2003 single by Aya Matsuura- People with the family name :...
Trembińska. In 1850, when the future
Bolesław Prus was three years old, his mother died; the child was given into the care of his maternal grandmother, Marcjanna Trembińska of Puławy, and, four years later, into that of his aunt, Domicela Olszewska of
LublinLublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,462 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
. In 1856 Prus was
orphanAn orphan is a child permanently bereaved of his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan....
ed by his father's death. In 1862 his brother Leon, a teacher who was thirteen years his elder, took him to
SiedlceSiedlce is a town in eastern Poland with 77,092 inhabitants . Situated in the Masovian Voivodeship , previously the town was the capital of a separate Siedlce Voivodeship ....
, then to
KielceKielce is a city in south eastern Poland with 202,609 inhabitants . It is also the capital city of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship since 1999, previously in Kielce Voivodeship...
.
Soon after the outbreak of the Polish
January 1863 UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
against Imperial Russia, 15-year-old Prus ran away from school to join the insurgents. He may have been influenced by his brother Leon, who subsequently became one of the insurrection's leaders. During the Uprising, Leon developed a mental illness that he would suffer from until his death in 1907.
On 1 September 1863, twelve days after his sixteenth birthday, Prus took part in a battle against Russian forces at a village called Białka, four kilometers south of
SiedlceSiedlce is a town in eastern Poland with 77,092 inhabitants . Situated in the Masovian Voivodeship , previously the town was the capital of a separate Siedlce Voivodeship ....
. He suffered contusions to the neck and
gunpowderGunpowder, also called black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. It burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. The term gunpowder also refers broadly to any...
injuries to his eyes, and was captured unconscious on the battlefield and taken to hospital in Siedlce. This experience may have caused his subsequent lifelong
agoraphobiaAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
.
Five months later, in early February 1864, for his role in the Uprising Prus was arrested and imprisoned at
Lublin CastleLublin Castle is situated in Lublin, Poland, adjacent to the Old Town district and close to the city center. The hill on which it is located was first fortified with a wood-reinforced earthen wall in the 12th century...
. In early April a military court sentenced him to forfeiture of his nobleman's status and resettlement on imperial lands. On 30 April, however, the Lublin District military head credited Prus' time spent under arrest and, on account of the 16-year-old's youth, decided to place him in the custody of his uncle Klemens Olszewski. On 7 May Prus was released and entered the household of Katarzyna Trembińska, a relative and the mother of his future wife, Oktawia Trembińska.
Prus enrolled at a
LublinLublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,462 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
gymnasiumA gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools...
(where he was a student of Józef Skłodowski, grandfather of Maria Skłodowska-Curie). Graduating on 30 June 1866, he matriculated in the
Warsaw UniversityUniversity of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland, ranked by the Times Higher Education Supplement as the second best Polish university among the world top 500 in 2006.-1816-31:...
Department of Mathematics and Physics. In 1868 his University studies were cut short by financial difficulties.
In 1869 he enrolled at the Agricultural and Forestry Institute in Puławy, a historic town where he had spent part of his childhood and which would be the setting for his striking 1884
micro-storyFlash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.-Terms:Other names for flash fiction...
, "
Mold of the Earth"Mold of the Earth" is one of the shortest micro-stories by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus.Written in 1884, the story comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused by the situation of Poland "Mold of the Earth" (Polish: "Pleśń świata") is one of the shortest...
." Soon, however, he was expelled after a classroom confrontation with a professor of Russian language.
Henceforth he studied on his own while supporting himself as a factory worker and tutor. As part of his program of self-education, he translated and summarized
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill , English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control...
's
Logic. In 1872 he embarked on a career in journalism, while continuing to work at the Lilpop and Rau factory in Warsaw. Journalism would become his school of writing.
In 1873 Prus delivered two public lectures whose subjects illustrate the breadth of his scientific interests: "On the Structure of the Universe," and "On Discoveries and Inventions."
Journalism
As a newspaper columnist, Prus commented on the achievements of scientists and scholars such as
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill , English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control...
,
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection...
,
Alexander BainAlexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist.- Early life :He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland to George Bain and Margaret Paul. At age eleven he left school to work as a weaver hence the description of him as Weevir, rex philosophorum...
,
Herbert SpencerHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
and
Henry Thomas BuckleHenry Thomas Buckle was an English historian, author of a History of Civilization.- Biography :The son of Thomas Henry Buckle, a wealthy London merchant and shipowner, he was born at Lee in Kent. His delicate health prevented him obtaining much formal education. However, the love of reading he...
; urged Poles to study science and technology and to develop industry and commerce; encouraged the establishment of
charitable institutionsA charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . The term is relatively general and can technically refer to a public charity or a private foundation. It differs from other types of NPOs in that its focus is centered around goals of a general philanthropic nature A charitable...
to benefit the underprivileged; described the fiction and nonfiction works of fellow writers such as H.G. Wells; and extolled man-made and natural wonders such as the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the town of Nałęczów, and an 1887
solar eclipseA solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth so that the Sun is fully or partially covered. This can only happen during a new moon, when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction as seen from the Earth. At least two and up to five solar eclipses can occur each year on Earth,...
that he witnessed at Mława.
His "Weekly Chronicles" spanned forty years (they have since been reprinted in twenty volumes) and would help prepare the ground for the 20th-century blossoming of Polish
scienceEducation has been of prime interest to Poland's rulers since the early 12th century. The catalog of the library of the Cathedral Chapter in Kraków dating from 1110 shows that Polish scholars already then had access to western European literature. In 1364, King Kazimierz the Great founded the...
and especially
mathematicsThe Polish School of Mathematics refers to the mathematics community that flourished in Poland in the 20th century, particularly during the Interbellum between World Wars I and II.- Overview :The Polish School of Mathematics subsumed:...
. "Our national life," wrote Prus, "will take a normal course only when we have become a useful, indispensable element of civilization, when we have become able to give nothing for free and to demand nothing for free." The social importance of science and technology would recur as a theme in his novels
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
(1889) and
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
(1895).
Of contemporary thinkers, the one who most greatly influenced Prus and other writers of the Polish "
PositivistPositivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
" period (roughly 1864–1900) was
Herbert SpencerHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
, the English sociologist who coined the phrase, "
survival of the fittest"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase which is commonly used in contexts other than intended by its first two proponents - British polymath philosopher Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin....
." Prus would call Spencer "the
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
of the 19th century" and would write: "I grew up under the influence of Spencerian
evolutionIn biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
ary
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and heeded its counsels, not those of Idealist or Comtean
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
." Prus interpreted "survival of the fittest," in the societal sphere, as involving not only competition but also cooperation; and he adopted Spencer's metaphor of society as organism. He would use this metaphor to striking effect in his 1884
micro-storyFlash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.-Terms:Other names for flash fiction...
"
Mold of the Earth"Mold of the Earth" is one of the shortest micro-stories by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus.Written in 1884, the story comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused by the situation of Poland "Mold of the Earth" (Polish: "Pleśń świata") is one of the shortest...
," and in the introduction to his 1895
historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
,
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
.
After Prus began writing regular weekly newspaper columns, his finances stabilized, permitting him on January 14, 1875, to marry a
distant cousin on his mother's side, Oktawia Trembińska. She was the daughter of Katarzyna Trembińska, in whose home he had lived, after his release from prison, for two years in 1864–66 while completing secondary school. The couple never had children of their own. They adopted a boy, Emil Trembiński (born September 11, 1886, the son of Prus' wife's brother Michał Trembiński, who had died on November 10, 1888). Emil would be the model for "Rascal" in chapter 48 of Prus' 1895 novel,
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
. On February 18, 1904, at age seventeen, Emil would fatally shoot himself in the chest on the doorstep of an unrequited love.
It has been alleged that in 1906, at age fifty-nine, Prus had a son, Jan Bogusz Sacewicz. The boy's mother was Alina Sacewicz, widow of Dr. Kazimierz Sacewicz, a socially-conscious physician whom Prus had known at Nałęczów. Dr. Sacewicz may have been the model for
Stefan ŻeromskiStefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature"...
's Dr. Judym in the novel,
Homeless People—a character resembling Dr. Stockman in Ibsen's play,
Enemy of the PeopleThe term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. Its usage is derogatory, and meant to imply that the "enemies" are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notions of "public enemy" and "enemy of the state". The term...
. Prus, known for his affection for children generally, took a lively interest in little Jan, as attested by a prolific correspondence with Jan's mother (whom Prus attempted to interest in becoming a writer). Jan Sacewicz would become one of Prus' major
legateeA legatee, in the law of wills, is any individual or organization bequeathed any portion of a testator's estate.-Usage:Depending upon local custom, legatees may be called "devisees." Traditionally, "legatees" took personal property under will and "devisees" took land under will. Brooker v....
s and an engineer, and would die in a German camp after the suppression of the
Warsaw UprisingThe Warsaw Uprising was a struggle by the Polish Home Army to liberate Warsaw from Nazi German occupation during World War II. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest. It was intended to last for only a few days until the Soviet Army reached the...
of August–October 1944.
Though Prus was a gifted writer, initially best known for his humorist work, early on he thought little of his journalistic and literary productions. Hence at the inception of his career in 1872, at age 25, he adopted for his newspaper columns and fiction the
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
"Prus"—"
Prus I" being his family coat-of-arms—while reserving his actual name, Aleksander Głowacki, for "serious" writings.
In 1878 an incident occurred that illustrated the strong feelings that could be aroused in susceptible readers of newspaper columns. In one of his columns, Prus had criticized the loud and, in his view, inappropriate behavior of some youths at a lecture about the poet
Wincenty PolWincenty Pol was a Polish poet and geographer.-Life:Pol was born in Lublin , to Franz Pohl , a German in the Austrian service, and his wife Eleonora Longchamps de Berier, from a French family living in Poland. Pol fought in the Polish army in the November 1830 Uprising and participated in the 1848...
. The
University of WarsawUniversity of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland, ranked by the Times Higher Education Supplement as the second best Polish university among the world top 500 in 2006.-1816-31:...
students in question demanded that Prus retract what he had written. After he refused, on 26 March 1878 several of them surrounded him outside his home, to which he had just returned in the company of two fellow-writers, and one of the students, Jan Sawicki, slapped Prus in the face. Prus summoned police, but subsequently declined to press charges against the students. He remembered the incident, however; and seventeen years later, during his 1895 visit to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he refused, by some accounts, to meet with one of his erstwhile assailants, whom he blamed for having "ruined [his] life," perhaps by having caused or exacerbated his
agoraphobiaAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
.
In 1882, on the recommendation of an earlier editor-in-chief, the prophet of
Polish PositivismPositivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
,
Aleksander ŚwiętochowskiAleksander Świętochowski was a Polish writer, educator, and philosopher of the Positivist period that followed the January 1863 Uprising.He was widely regarded as the prophet of Polish Positivism, spreading in the Warsaw...
, Prus succeeded to the editorship of the
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
daily
Nowiny (News). The newspaper had been bought in June 1882 by financier Stanisław Kronenberg. Prus resolved, in the best
PositivistPositivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
fashion, to make it "an observatory of societal facts"—an instrument for advancing the development of his country. After less than a year, however,
Nowiny—which had had a history of financial instability since changing in July 1878 from a Sunday paper to a daily—folded, and Prus resumed writing
columnsA column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Columns are written by columnists.What differentiates a column from other forms of journalism is that it meets each of the following criteria:...
.
He continued working as a journalist to the end of his life, well after he had achieved success as an author of short stories and novels.
Fiction
In time, Prus adopted the French Positivist critic
Hippolyte TaineHippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
's concept of the arts, including literature, as a second means, alongside the sciences, of studying reality, and he devoted more attention to his sideline of
short-story writerA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format or medium tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels or books...
. Prus' stories, which met with great acclaim, owed much to the literary influence of Polish novelist
Józef Ignacy KraszewskiJózef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish novelist.-Life:Kraszewski , a prolific writer, produced more than two hundred novels...
and, among English-language writers, to
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
and
Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted...
. His fiction would also be influenced by French writers
Victor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
,
Gustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style...
,
Alphonse DaudetAlphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.-Early life:...
and
Émile ZolaÉmile François Zola was an influential French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism, an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalisation of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused...
.
Prus wrote several dozen stories, originally published in newspapers and ranging in length from
micro-storyFlash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.-Terms:Other names for flash fiction...
to
novellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. While there is disagreement as to what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count...
. Characteristic of Prus' stories are his keen observation of everyday life and his sense of humor, which he had honed early on as a contributor to humor magazines. The prevalence of themes from everyday life is consistent with the Polish Positivist artistic program, which sought to portray the circumstances of the general
populaceA populace is a group of people forming the total population of a certain place. It is taken from the Latin word populus, which means "people", but also in the sense of a race, nationality, or locality. This can be compared with the Spanish word pueblo, which derives from the same Latin root....
rather than those of the erstwhile
RomanticRomanticism largely began as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day. Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical compartmentalization than an actual...
heroes of an earlier generation of writers. The literary period in which Prus wrote was ostensibly a
prosaicProse is the ordinary form of written language. The word "prose" is derived from the Latin prosa, which literally translates to "straightforward". Prose is adopted for the discussion of facts and topical reading, as it is often articulated in free form writing style...
age, by contrast with the
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
of the Romantics; but Prus' prose is often a
poetic proseProse poetry, as it is usually understood, is poetry written in prose that departs from some of the usual practices associated with prose discourse, for the sake of heightened imagery or emotional effect.-Characteristics:...
. His stories also often contain elements of
fantasyFantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Many works within the genre take place on fictional planes or planets where magic is common...
or whimsy. A fair number of his stories originally appeared in
New YearThe New Year is an event that happens when a culture celebrates the end of one year and the beginning of the next year. Cultures that measure yearly calendars all have New Year celebrations...
's issues of newspapers.
Prus long eschewed writing
historical fictionHistorical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, nominally attempt to capture the spirit, manners, and social conditions of the persons or time presented in...
, arguing that it must inevitably distort
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
. He criticized contemporary
historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
ists for their lapses in historic accuracy, including
Henryk SienkiewiczHenryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist...
's failure, in the military scenes in his
TrilogyFor the general use of the term "trilogy", see Trilogy.The Trilogy is a series of three novels written by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. The series follows dramatized versions of famous events in Polish history, weaving fact and fiction. The first novel, titled With Fire and Sword,...
portraying 17th-century Polish history, to describe the
logisticsLogistics is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources, including energy and people, between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of consumers...
of warfare. It would only be in 1888, when Prus was forty, that he would write his first historical fiction, the stunning short story, "
A Legend of Old Egypt"A Legend of Old Egypt" is a short story by Bolesław Prus, originally published January 1, 1888, in New Year's supplements to the Warsaw Kurier Codzienny and Tygodnik Ilustrowany...
." This story would, a few years later, serve as a preliminary sketch for his only historical novel,
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
(1895).
Eventually Prus would compose four
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s on what he had referred to in an 1884 letter as "great questions of our age":
The OutpostThe Outpost was the first of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The author sought to bring attention to the plight of rural Poland, which had to contend with poverty, ignorance, neglect on the part of the country's upper crust, and colonization by German settlers backed by Otto...
(
Placówka, 1886) on the Polish peasant;
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
(
Lalka, 1889) on the
aristocracyAristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number...
and townspeople and on
idealistsAn ideal is a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal. Ideals are particularly important in ethics, as the order in which one places them tends to determine the degree to which one reveals them as real and sincere. It is the application, in ethics, of a universal...
struggling to bring about social reforms;
The New WomanThe New Woman is the third of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed, and appeared in newspaper serialization, in 1890-93, and dealt with societal questions involving feminism.-History:...
(
Emancypantki, 1893) on
feministThe term Feminism can be used to describe an academic discourse, or to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing more rights and legal protection for women...
concerns; and his only
historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
,
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
(
Faraon, 1895), on mechanisms of
political powerPolitical power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
. The work of greatest sweep and most universal appeal is
Pharaoh. Prus' novels, like his stories, were originally published in newspaper
serializationThe term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
.
After having sold
Pharaoh to the publishing firm of Gebethner and Wolff, Prus embarked on May 16, 1895, on a four-month journey abroad. He visited
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Karlsbad,
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
,
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
and
RapperswilRapperswil-Jona is a municipality in the Wahlkreis of See-Gaster in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.Besides Rapperswil and Jona, which were separate municipalities until 2003, the municipality includes Bollingen, Busskirch, Curtiberg, Kempraten-Lenggis, Wagen, and Wurmsbach.-Today:In 2003...
. At the latter
SwissSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
town he stayed two months (July–August), nursing his
agoraphobiaAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
and spending much time with his friends, the promising young writer
Stefan ŻeromskiStefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature"...
and his wife Oktawia. The couple sought Prus' help for the Polish National Museum, housed in the Rapperswil Castle, where Żeromski was librarian.
The final stage of Prus's journey took him to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he was prevented by his agoraphobia from crossing the Seine River to visit the city's southern
Left BankLa Rive Gauche is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here, the river flows roughly westwards, cutting the city into two: the Rive Droite , to the north and the Rive Gauche , to the south....
. He was nevertheless pleased to find that his descriptions of Paris in
The Doll had been on the mark (he had based them mainly on French-language publications). From Paris he hurried home to recuperate at Nałęczów from his journey, the last that he would make abroad.
Later years
Over the years, Prus lent his name and support to many charitable and social causes. But there was one event that he would come to rue for the broad criticism that it brought him: it involved his helping to welcome Russia's
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
Nicholas II during an 1897 visit to Warsaw. As a rule, Prus held to the principle of not affiliating himself with
political partiesPolitical Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
, as such affiliation might compromise his journalistic objectivity. His associations, by design and temperament, were with individuals and with select worthy causes rather than with large groups.
Prus' experiences in the
January 1863 UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
had persuaded him to urge society's advancement through learning, work and commerce rather than through potentially disastrous social upheavals. He departed from this stance, however, in 1905, when Imperial Russia experienced defeat in the
Russo-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
and his compatriots demanded autonomy and reforms. On December 20, 1905, in the first issue of a short-lived periodical,
Młodość (Youth), he published an article, "
Oda do młodości" ("Ode to Youth"), whose title harked back to an 1820 poem by
Adam MickiewiczAdam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian Romantic poet...
. Prus wrote, in reference to his earlier position on revolution and strikes: "with the greatest pleasure, I admit it—I was wrong!"
In 1908 Prus serialized in the Warsaw
Tygodnik Ilustrowany (Illustrated Weekly) his novel
Dzieci (Children), describing the young revolutionaries, terrorists and anarchists of the day; it was an uncharacteristically humorless work. Three years later a final novel,
Przemiany (Changes), was to have been, not unlike
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
, a panorama of the society and of its vital concerns. The novel's beginning, however, had barely been serialized in the
Illustrated Weekly in 1911-12 when the book's composition was cut short by Prus' death. Neither of the two late novels,
Children or
Changes, is generally regarded as part of the essential Prus canon, and Czesław Miłosz has called
Children one of Prus' weakest works.
Prus' last novel to meet with popular acclaim was
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, completed in 1895. Depicting the demise of
ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
's Twentieth Dynasty and
New KingdomThe New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was...
three thousand years earlier,
Pharaoh had also reflected
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
's loss of independence a century before in 1795—an independence whose post-
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
restoration Prus would not live to see.
On May 19, 1912, in his Warsaw apartment at 12 Wolf Street (
ulica Wilcza 12), Prus' forty-year journalistic and literary career came to an end.
The beloved
agoraphobicAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
author was mourned by the nation that he had striven, as soldier, thinker and writer, to rescue from oblivion. Thousands attended his May 22, 1912, funeral service at
St. Alexander's ChurchSt. Alexander's Church is a Roman Catholic church on Plac Trzech Krzyży in Warsaw, Poland. The church was constructed in the years 1818–25 in Neoclassical style. In 1886–95 it was rebuilt in Neo-Renaissance style, resulting in a much larger building with two prominent towers and a large dome...
on nearby
Triple Cross SquarePlac Trzech Krzyży is a large square in downtown Warsaw, Poland, lying on the Royal Route between ulica Nowy Świat , to the north, and Aleje Ujazdowskie .-History:...
(
Plac Trzech Krzyży) and his interment at
Powązki CemeteryPowązki Cemetery and Military Cemetery are the oldest and most famous cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, and are situated in the western part of the city...
.
Prus' tomb was designed by his nephew, the noted sculptor Stanisław Jackowski. On three sides it bears, respectively, the novelist's actual name,
Aleksander Głowacki, his years of birth and death, and his
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
,
Bolesław Prus. On the fourth side is the Polish-language inscription
"Serce serc" ("Heart of hearts"), borrowed from the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
inscription
"Cor cordium" on the tomb of English Romantic poet
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language...
in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
's
Protestant CemeteryThe Protestant Cemetery , officially called the Cimitero acattolico and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated into...
. Below that inscription is the figure of a little girl embracing Prus' tomb — a figure emblematic of his well-known empathy and affection for children.
Legacy
On December 3, 1961, nearly half a century after Prus' death, a museum devoted to him was opened in the 18th-century Małachowski Palace at Nałęczów, near
LublinLublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,462 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
, a city in eastern Poland. It was at Nałęczów that Prus had vacationed for thirty years from 1882 until his death, and that he had met the young
Stefan ŻeromskiStefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature"...
. Prus had stood witness at Żeromski's 1892 wedding and had helped foster the younger man's writing career.
While Prus espoused a positivist and
realistLiterary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
outlook, much in his fiction shows qualities compatible with pre-
1863-UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
Polish Romantic literature. Indeed, he held the Polish
RomanticRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
poet
Adam MickiewiczAdam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian Romantic poet...
in high regard. Prus's novels in turn, especially
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
and
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, with their innovative composition techniques, blazed the way for the 20th-century Polish novel.
Prus's novel
The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
was considered by Czesław Miłosz to be the best Polish novel.
The New WomanThe New Woman is the third of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed, and appeared in newspaper serialization, in 1890-93, and dealt with societal questions involving feminism.-History:...
was pronounced by
Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born British novelist, who in 1886 became a British subject....
to be "better than
DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
"—Dickens being a favorite author of Conrad's. Czesław Miłosz, however, thought that the novel was "as a whole... an artistic failure..."
Zygmunt SzweykowskiZygmunt Szweykowski was a foremost historian of Polish literature.-Life:Szweykowski held a professorship at the Free Polish University in Warsaw and Łódź in 1932-39....
similarly faulted
The New Womans loose, tangential construction; this, in his view, was partly redeemed by Prus' humor and by some superb episodes, while "The tragedy of Mrs. Latter and the picture of [the town of] Iksinów are among the peak achievements of [Polish] novel-writing."
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, a study of political powerPolitical power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
, became the favorite novel of Soviet dictator Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
, prefigured the fate of U.S. President John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, and continues to point analogies to more recent times. Pharaoh
is often described as Prus' "best-composed novel"—indeed, "one of the best-composed [of all] Polish novels." This was due in part to Pharaoh
having been composed complete prior to newspaper serialization, rather than being written in installments just before printing, as was the case with Prus' earlier major novels.
The Doll
and Pharaoh
, which made Prus a potential candidate for the Nobel Prize in literatureThe Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, are available in English versions. The Doll
has been translated into sixteen languages, and Pharaoh
into twenty. In addition, The Doll
has been filmed several times and been produced as a late-1970s television miniseries, while Pharaoh
was adapted into a 1966 feature filmPharaoh is a 1966 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz and adapted from the eponymous novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. In 1967 it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
.
In 1897-99 Prus serializedThe term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
in the Warsaw Daily Courier
(Kurier Codzienny
) a monographA monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually also by a single author. It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on The Most General Life Ideals
(Najogólniejsze ideały życiowe
), which systematized ethical ideas that he had developed over his career regarding happiness
, utility
and perfection
in the lives of individuals and societies. In it he returned to the society-organizing (i.e., political) interests that had been frustrated during his Nowiny editorship fifteen years earlier. A book edition appeared in 1901 (2nd, revised edition, 1905). This work, rooted in
Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of Samuel Bentham. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law...
's
Utilitarian philosophyUtilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people...
and Herbert Spencer's view of society-as-organism, retains interest especially for
philosophersPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and social scientists.
Another of Prus' learned projects remained incomplete at his death. He had sought over his writing career to develop a coherent theory of literary composition. Notes of his from 1886-1912 were never put together into a finished book as he had intended. Some particularly intriguing fragments describe Prus' combinatorial
calculationA calculation is a deliberate process for transforming one or more inputs into one or more results, with variable change.The term is used in a variety of senses, from the very definite arithmetical calculation of using an algorithm to the vague heuristics of calculating a strategy in a competition...
s of the millions of potential "individual types" of human
charactersA character structure is a system of relatively permanent motivational and other traits that are manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and the environment that will most likely bring about a normal or productive character...
, given a stated number of "individual
traitsIn psychology, Trait theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over...
."
A curious
comparative-literatureComparative literature is critical scholarship dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
aspect has been noted to Prus's career, which paralleled that of his American contemporary,
Ambrose BierceAmbrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. Today, he is best known for his short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and his satirical dictionary, The Devil's Dictionary.The sardonic view of human nature that informed his...
(1842-1914). Each became a
warWar is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result...
casualtyA casualty is a person who is the victim of an accident, injury, or trauma. The word casualties is most often used by the news media to describe deaths and injuries resulting from wars or disasters...
with
combatCombat, or fighting, is purposeful violent conflict intended to establish dominance over the opposition.The term "combat" typically refers to armed conflict between military forces in warfare, whereas the more general term "fighting" can refer to any violent conflict...
head trauma—Prus in 1863 in the Polish
1863-65 UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
; Bierce in 1864 in the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
. Each experienced false starts in other occupations, and at twenty-five became a journalist for the next forty years; failed to sustain a career as editor-in-chief; achieved celebrity as a short-story writer; lost a son in tragic circumstances (Prus, an adopted son; Bierce, both his sons); attained superb humorous effects by portraying human egoism (Prus especially in
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, Bierce in The Devil's DictionaryThe Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, is a satirical book published in 1911. It offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language which lampoon cant and political doublespeak....
); was dogged from early adulthood by a health problem (Prus, agoraphobiaAgoraphobia is an anxiety disorder, often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape. As a result, sufferers of agoraphobia avoid public and/or unfamiliar places, especially large, open, spaces such as shopping malls or airports...
; Bierce, asthmaAsthma is a predisposition to chronic inflammation of the lungs in which the airways are reversibly narrowed. Asthma affects 7% of the population of the United States, and 300 million worldwide...
); and died within two years of the other (Prus in 1912; Bierce presumably in 1914). Prus, however, unlike Bierce, went on from short stories to write novels.
In Prus' lifetime and since, his contributions to Polish literature and culture have been memorialized without regard to the nature of the political system prevailing in Poland in the respective periods:
- His 50th birthday, in 1897, was marked by special newspaper issues celebrating his 25 years as a journalist and literary artist, and a portrait of him was commissioned from artist Antoni Kamieński.
- The town where Prus was born, Hrubieszów
Hrubieszów is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of 18,661 . It is the capital of Hrubieszów County.Since 1999 Hrubieszów has been part of Lublin Province . Earlier, 1975–98, it had been part of Zamość Province...
, near the present Polish-UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
border, is graced by an outdoor sculpture of him.
- A 1982 plaque on Warsaw University's administration building, the historic Kazimierz Palace, commemorates Prus' years at the University in 1866-68.
- Across the street (Krakowskie Przedmieście
Warsaw's Krakowskie Przedmieście is one of the most impressive and prestigious streets of Poland's capital....
) from the University, in the Holy Cross ChurchChurch of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic place of worship in downtown Warsaw. Located on Krakowskie Przedmieście, directly opposite the main Warsaw University campus, it is one of the most notable baroque churches in Poland's capital...
, a 1936 plaque by Prus' nephew Stanisław Jackowski, featuring Prus' profile, is dedicated to the memory of the "great writer and teacher of the nation."
- At Nałęczów, Prus' favorite vacationing place, in the Małachowski Palace is a Prus Museum, opened in 1961, and outside it, a sculpture of Prus seated on a bench.
- Another statuary monument to Prus at Nałęczów, sculpted by Alina Ślesińska, was unveiled on 8 May 1966.
- On the front of Warsaw's present-day ulica Wilcza 12, the site of Prus' last home, is a plaque commemorating the earlier, now-nonexistent building's most famous resident.
- A few hundred meters from there,
ulica Bolesława Prusa
(Bolesław Prus Street) debouches into the southeast corner of Warsaw's Triple Cross SquarePlac Trzech Krzyży is a large square in downtown Warsaw, Poland, lying on the Royal Route between ulica Nowy Świat , to the north, and Aleje Ujazdowskie .-History:...
. In this square stands St. Alexander's ChurchSt. Alexander's Church is a Roman Catholic church on Plac Trzech Krzyży in Warsaw, Poland. The church was constructed in the years 1818–25 in Neoclassical style. In 1886–95 it was rebuilt in Neo-Renaissance style, resulting in a much larger building with two prominent towers and a large dome...
, where Prus' funeral was held.
In 1937, plaques were installed at Krakowskie PrzedmieścieWarsaw's Krakowskie Przedmieście is one of the most impressive and prestigious streets of Poland's capital....
4
and 7
, where the two chief characters of Prus' novel The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
, Stanisław Wokulski and Ignacy Rzecki, respectively, had been deduced to have resided.
From 1975 to 1984, Prus' compatriots honored his memory with a 10-złoty
coin featuring his profile.
Near the site of a newspaper for which Prus once wrote, in a park on Warsaw's Krakowskie PrzedmieścieWarsaw's Krakowskie Przedmieście is one of the most impressive and prestigious streets of Poland's capital....
adjacent to the
Hotel BristolSince the mid 19th century scores - perhaps hundreds - of hotels throughout the world have carried the name Bristol. They are traditionally upscale, offering a high standard of accommodation...
, stands a statue of Prus, sculpted in 1977 by
Anna Kamieńska-ŁapińskaAnna Kamieńska-Łapińska was a Polish sculptor and animated-film scenarist.-Life:...
. It is some twelve feet tall, on a minimal pedestal as befits an author who always chose to be close to his fellow man.
Consonant with Prus' interest in the advancement of commerce and technology, there is a Polish Ocean Lines freighter named for him.
Works
Following is a chronological list of notable works by Bolesław Prus. Translated titles are given, followed by original titles and dates of publication.
Novels
- Souls in Bondage (Dusze w niewoli, written 1876, serialized
The term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
1877)
- Fame (Sława, begun 1885, never finished)
- The Outpost
The Outpost was the first of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The author sought to bring attention to the plight of rural Poland, which had to contend with poverty, ignorance, neglect on the part of the country's upper crust, and colonization by German settlers backed by Otto...
(Placówka, 1885–86)
- The Doll
The Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
(Lalka, 1887–89)
- The New Woman
The New Woman is the third of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed, and appeared in newspaper serialization, in 1890-93, and dealt with societal questions involving feminism.-History:...
(Emancypantki, 1890–93)
- Pharaoh
Pharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
(Faraon, written 1894–95; serializedThe term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
1895–96)
- Children (Dzieci, 1908; approximately the first nine chapters had originally appeared, in a somewhat different form, in 1907 as Dawn [Świt])
- Changes (Przemiany, begun 1911–12; unfinished)
Stories
- "The Old Lady's Troubles" ("Kłopoty babuni," 1874)
- "The Palace and the Hovel" ("Pałac i rudera," 1875)
- "The Ball Gown" ("Sukienka balowa," 1876)
- "An Orphan's Lot" ("Sieroca dola," 1876)
- "Eddy's Adventures" ("Przygody Edzia," 1876)
- "Damned Luck" ("Przeklęte szczęście," 1876)
- "The Old Lady's Casket" ("Szkatułka babki," 1878)
- "Stan's Adventure" ("Przygoda Stasia," 1879)
- "New Year" ("Nowy rok," 1880)
- "The Returning Wave" ("Powracająca fala," 1880)
- "Michałko" (1880)
- "Antek" (1880)
- "The Convert" ("Nawrócony," 1880)
- "The Barrel Organ" ("Katarynka," 1880)
- "One of Many" ("Jeden z wielu," 1882)
- "The Waistcoat" ("Kamizelka," 1882)
- "Him" ("On," 1882)
- "Fading Voices
"Fading Voices" is an 1883 short story by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus, the leading representative of Realism in 19th-century Polish literature.-Publication:...
" ("Milknące głosy," 1883)
- "Sins of Childhood" ("Grzechy dzieciństwa," 1883)
- "Orestes
In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones....
and PyladesIn Greek mythology, Pylades is the son of King Strophius of Phocis and of Anaxibia, daughter of Atreus and sister of Agamemnon and Menelaus. He is mostly known for his strong friendship or homosexual relationship with his cousin Orestes, son of Agamemnon.-Orestes and Pylades:Orestes had been sent...
" ("Orestes i Pylades," 1884)
- "Loves—Loves Not?..." ("Kocha—nie kocha?..." 1884)
- "The Mirror" ("Zwierciadło," 1884)
- "On Vacation" ("Na wakacjach," 1884)
- "An Old Tale" ("Stara bajka," 1884)
- "In the Light of the Moon" ("Przy księżycu," 1884)
- "The Mistake" ("Omyłka," 1884)
- "Mold of the Earth
"Mold of the Earth" is one of the shortest micro-stories by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus.Written in 1884, the story comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused by the situation of Poland "Mold of the Earth" (Polish: "Pleśń świata") is one of the shortest...
" ("Pleśń świata," 1884—a striking micro-storyFlash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.-Terms:Other names for flash fiction...
that portrays human historyThe history of the world is the recorded memory of the experience, around the world, of Homo sapiens. Ancient human history begins with the invention, independently at several sites on Earth, of writing, which created the infrastructure for lasting, accurately transmitted memories and thus for the...
as an unending series of conflicts among mindless, blind colonies of moldMolds include all species of microscopic fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments, called hyphae. In contrast, microscopic fungi that grow as single cells are called yeasts...
s)
- "The Living Telegraph" ("Żywy telegraf," 1884)
- "Mr. Dutkowski and His Farm" ("Pan Dutkowski i jego folwark," 1884)
- "Musical Echoes" ("Echa muzyczne," 1884)
- "In the Mountains" ("W górach," 1885)
- "Shades
"Shades" is one of Bolesław Prus' shortest micro-stories. Written in 1885, it comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused partly by the 1883 failure of Nowiny , a Warsaw daily that he had been editing less than a year...
" ("Ciene," 1885—an evocative meditation on existentialLike “rationalism” and “empiricism,” “existentialism” is a term that belongs to intellectual history. Its definition is thus to some extent one of historical convenience...
themes)
- "Anielka" (1885)
- "A Strange Story" ("Dziwna historia," 1887)
- "A Legend of Old Egypt
"A Legend of Old Egypt" is a short story by Bolesław Prus, originally published January 1, 1888, in New Year's supplements to the Warsaw Kurier Codzienny and Tygodnik Ilustrowany...
" ("Z legend dawnego Egiptu," 1888—Prus' first piece of historical fictionHistorical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, nominally attempt to capture the spirit, manners, and social conditions of the persons or time presented in...
; a stunning debut, and a preliminary sketch for his only historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
, PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, which would be written in 1894–95)
- "The Dream" ("Sen," 1890)
- "Lives of Saints" ("Z żywotów świętych," 1891–92)
- "Reconciled" ("Pojednani," 1892)
- "A Composition by Little Frank: About Mercy" ("Z wypracowań małego Frania. O miłosierdziu," 1898)
- "The Doctor's Story" ("Opowiadanie lekarza," 1902)
- "Memoirs of a Cyclist" ("Ze wspomnień cyklisty," 1903)
- "Revenge" ("Zemsta," 1908)
- "Phantoms" ("Widziadła," 1911, first published 1936)
Nonfiction
- "Travel Notes (Wieliczka)" ["Kartki z podróży (Wieliczka)," 1878—Prus' impressions of the Wieliczka Salt Mine; these would help inform the conception of the Egyptian Labyrinth in Prus's 1895 novel, Pharaoh]
- "A Word to the Public" ("Słówko do publiczności," June 11, 1882—Prus' inaugural address to readers as the new editor-in-chief of the daily, Nowiny [News], famously proposing to make it "an observatory of societal facts, just as there are observatories that study the movements of heavenly bodies, or—climatic changes.")
- "Sketch for a Program under the Conditions of the Present Development of Society" ("Szkic programu w warunkach obecnego rozwoju społeczeństwa," March 23–30, 1883—swan song
The phrase "swan song" is a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan is completely mute during its lifetime until the moment just before it dies, when it sings one beautiful song....
of Prus' editorship of Nowiny)
- "With Sword and Fire—Henryk Sienkiewicz's Novel of Olden Times" ("Ogniem i mieczem—powieść z dawnych lat Henryka Sienkiewicza," 1884—Prus' review of Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist...
's historical novel, and essay on historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
s)
- "The Paris Tower" ("Wieża paryska," 1887—whimsical divagations involving the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a 19th century iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris that has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower, which is the tallest building in Paris, is the single most visited paid monument in...
, the world's tallest structure, then yet to be constructed for the 1889 ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
Exposition UniverselleThe Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a World's Fair held in Paris, France from May 6, to October 31, 1889.It was held during the year of the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event traditionally considered as the symbol for the beginning of the French Revolution...
)
- "Travels on Earth and in Heaven" ("Wędrówka po ziemi i niebie," 1887—Prus' impressions of a solar eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth so that the Sun is fully or partially covered. This can only happen during a new moon, when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction as seen from the Earth. At least two and up to five solar eclipses can occur each year on Earth,...
that he observed at Mława; these would help inspire the solar-eclipse scenes in his 1895 novel, Pharaoh)
- "A Word about Positive Criticism" ("Słówko o krytyce pozytywnej," 1890—Prus' part of a polemic
Polemics is the practice of disputing or controverting significant, broad-reaching topics of magnitude such as religious, philosophical, political, or scientific matters...
with PositivistPositivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
guruA guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . As a principle for the development of consciousness it leads the creation from unreality to reality, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge...
Aleksander ŚwiętochowskiAleksander Świętochowski was a Polish writer, educator, and philosopher of the Positivist period that followed the January 1863 Uprising.He was widely regarded as the prophet of Polish Positivism, spreading in the Warsaw...
)
- "Eusapia Palladino" (1893—newspaper column about mediumistic
Mediumship is supposedly a form of communication with spirits.It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Louisiana Voodoo, Shambala and Umbanda...
séanceA séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
s held in Warsaw by the Italian Spiritualist, Eusapia PalladinoEusapia Palladino was a Spiritualist medium from Naples, Italy.In Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Russia, Palladino seemed to display extraordinary powers in the dark: levitating and elongating herself, "apporting" flowers, materializing the dead, producing spirit hands and faces in wet clay,...
; these would help inspire similar scenes in Prus' 1895 novel, Pharaoh)
- "From Nałęczów" ("Z Nałęczowa," 1894—Prus' paean to the salubrious waters and natural and social environment of his favorite vacation spot, Nałęczów)
- The Most General Life Ideals (Najogólniejsze ideały życiowe, 1905—Prus's system of pragmatic ethics
Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
)
- "Ode to Youth" ("Oda do młodości," 1905—Prus' admission that, before the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
's defeat in the Russo-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, he had held too cautious a view of the chances for an improvement in Poland's political situation)
- "Visions of the Future" ("Wizje przyszłości," 1909—a discussion of H.G. Wells' 1901 futurological
Futures studies, foresight, or futurology is the philosophy, science, art and practice of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. Futures studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is...
book, Anticipations, which predicted, among other things, the defeat of German imperialism, the ascendancy of the English language, and the existence, by the year 2000, of a "European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
" that would include the Slavic peoples of Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
)
- "The Poet, Educator of the Nation" ("Poeta wychowawca narodu," 1910—a discussion of the cultural and political principles imparted by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian Romantic poet...
)
- "What We... Never Learned from the History of Napoleon" ("Czego nas... nie nauczyły dzieje Napoleona"—Prus's contribution to the December 16, 1911, issue of the Warsaw Illustrated Weekly, devoted entirely to Napoleon)
Translations
Prus' writings have been translated into many languages — his
historical novelHistorical fiction is a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events, or more generally, in which the author uses real events but adds a fictional character.-Overview:...
PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, into twenty; his contemporary novel The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
, into at least sixteen. Works by Prus have been rendered into CroatianCroatian is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Croatian minorities in some neighbouring countries, in the Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croatian diaspora....
by a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and ArtsThe Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :...
, Stjepan MusulinStjepan Musulin was a Croatian linguist, comparative Slavicist, philologist, lexicographer and translator.-Life:Musulin translated from the Polish and Czech languages...
.
Film versions
PharaohPharaoh is a 1966 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz and adapted from the eponymous novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. In 1967 it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
, adapted from the novel PharaohPharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had disapproved of historical novels for inevitably distorting history.Pharaoh has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a...
, directed by Jerzy KawalerowiczJerzy Kawalerowicz was a Polish film director.Born in Gwoździec, Poland, Jerzy Kawalerowicz was noted for his powerful, detail-oriented imagery and the depth of ideas in his films. After working as an assistant director, he made his directorial debut with the 1951 film The Village Mill ...
1968: Lalka
(The Doll), adapted from the novel The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
, directed by Wojciech HasWojciech Jerzy Has was a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer.-Early Life & Studies:...
1978: Lalka
(The Doll), adapted from the novel The DollThe Doll is the second of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887-89 and appeared in book form in 1890....
, directed by Ryszard Ber
1979: Placówka
(The Outpost), adapted from the novel The OutpostThe Outpost was the first of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The author sought to bring attention to the plight of rural Poland, which had to contend with poverty, ignorance, neglect on the part of the country's upper crust, and colonization by German settlers backed by Otto...
, directed by Zygmunt Skonieczny
1982: Pensja Pani Latter
(Mrs. Latter's Boarding School), adapted from the novel The New Woman
See also
- History of philosophy in Poland
- Positivism in Poland
Positivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and other walks of life in partitioned Poland after the disastrous January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the Young Poland...
- List of Poles—Literature
- List of Poles—Philosophy
- Zakopane
- Flash fiction
Flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.-Terms:Other names for flash fiction...
External links
- Boleslaw Prus at NewPoland.com
- Boleslaw Prus in Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. The articles in the Britannica are aimed at educated adult readers, and written by a staff of about 100 full-time editors and more than...
- Bolesław Prus in Columbia Encyclopedia
The Columbia Encyclopedia is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its important relationship with Columbia University, the encyclopedia underwent major revisions in 1950 and 1963; the current edition is...
- Bolesław Prus in MSN Encarta
- Józef Bachórz, Bolesław PRUS in VIRTUAL LIBRARY OF POLISH LITERATURE
- "Mold of the Earth" by Bolesław Prus, translated by Christopher Kasparek Prus Bolesław in PWN Encyklopedia Prus Bolesław in Interia Encyklopedia Prus Bolesław in WIEM Encyklopedia
WIEM Encyklopedia is a Polish Internet encyclopedia....
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